Sony: NGP games will be downloadable the same day they hit retail

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Sony has been increasingly pushing its game distribution channel into the cloud in its PlayStation line, between the PlayStation 3 and the PSP Go. Expect that trend to continue when the PSP2/ NGP comes to town, as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss Andrew House is promising that all NGP titles will be downloadable the same day as they are made available for purchase in retail.

In an interview with MCV, House said that Sony wants to adopt a hybrid model of distribution for the NGP, building on the PSP Go strategy which saw the PSP’s UMD drive abandoned and a download-distribution model encouraged. Unlike the PSP Go, though, NGP games will be available to purchase on flash storage cards sold through retail stores… but they’ll be on sale simultaneously as digital downloads. Some titles, in fact, will be digital download exclusives!

“One thing we learnt from PSP, is that we want to have simultaneous delivery in digital and physical for NGP. Just to clarify that, all games that appear physically will be made available digitally,” said House. “Not necessarily all games have to be made available physically. And having the option of a digital-only method affords more creative risk-taking, and that’s because you don’t-have that in-built risk of physical inventory.”

According to House, high-end titles using all 4GB of space available to them on a flash card will be the sorts of games people will prefer to buy at retail as opposed to download. More casual games will make up the bulk of downloads. The idea is to have the best of both worlds: the PSP Go’s library of more high-end titles, coupled with iOS’s wealth of smaller, more casual titles. I can’t wait to see how this works out.